Graduation Celebration - Our last day at sea :(

The trip passed so quickly. I couldn't believe when Saturday came around that it was our last day on the boat. But it was :( We woke up and grabbed some breakfast on the top deck near a window. As we were finishing up, Sean's parents, Alisha and Mackenzie passed by us. They were heading up to play mini golf. We ate our last couple of bites and then joined them for some windy golf. There's nothing like sailing at 20 knots and trying to hit a golf ball with no protection from the wind. After finishing up golf, we went back to the room for me to change into my bathing suit and for Sean to watch the morning show. You got prizes if you called in at the end of it. The first day at sea Sean earned his 24 carat gold plastic ship on a stick trophy and a bottle of wine. Today he just won another trophy and another photograph of the ship sailing under this bridge in Tampa where there's little clearance between the top of the ship and the bottom of the bridge. Just as well as we aren't really wine drinkers.

I went up to the adult only section of the pool deck to finish up my book on my kindle and get some sun. Apparently a lot of other adults had the same idea as there were no available lounge chairs. But what is nice about the pools is that they have a really shallow deck where you can just sit in the water. Armed with my kindle covered in plastic to protect it from water I took that option. It worked out better because it was really hot. Sean checked in on me hourly until lunch when I abandoned the pool for a little bit. Today they also had the chocolate buffet with options to dip fruit in chocolate and then several different types of chocolate pies and cake. My favorite part was the strawberry soup - I don't know why they include it on the chocolate buffet, but I don't ask. Then we went to watch a man carve an ice sculpture out of a 300 pound block of ice. It took about 20 minutes and he had shaved off 150 pounds of ice and made it into an Indian chief. The sun was brutal on the ice as the Indian chief had streams of water running off his face and his feathers.

We found both sets of parents while watching the ice carving and found out my parents were going to participate in the bean bag toss game. After checking out the pictures taken of us throughout the trip and trying to find one or two to take home, we went to watch them. They won the first game but got creamed the second.

I returned to the deck for one last read and lounge with the sounds of the ocean in the background until Mackenzie's talent show. All week she loved going to Camp Carnival and enjoyed sharing that no adults were allowed; only little kids. It was held in Medusa's lair, which has been set up to look like a night club. It had a pretty cool dance floor that lit up, winding stairs to get inside and Medusa's head on one of the walls, complete with snakes. She was the third performer and after debating doing a Taylor Swift song, she selected America the Beautiful. She was a little hesitant to go up, but was good once she had a mike. She started with the pledge of allegiance, which was a little bit of a game changer. Apparently that's the routine for pre-school, but she quickly followed with the song. She then participated in the group dance and afterwards informed us that they dance to that song on every cruise.

We all went to play family feud after the talent show. We had to divide into 2 teams so it was the "Xs" vs. the "not xs." Not very creative, but it did create an even split. Mackenzie even helped with an answer although technically she's on the other team. My main goal was to beat mis padres and mission accomplished, we did. Mackenzie was getting antsy while waiting for dinner and decided she would eat with Camp Carnival for the last night. We enjoyed a yummy dinner - the last in a while where I will be given such wonderful options and finished with the waiters singing their good bye song. Our waiter did an excellent job and gave hugs all around. Then Sean and I went to the adult area of the pool deck to enjoy the hammocks and the sounds. I am perfectly content just relaxing in them, but it's not exactly Sean's cup of tea, so after a little bit we started walking around the deck. There were 2 trivia/shows that Sean wanted to do, so we headed to the gender show where we were promptly divided into a male and female section. Fortunately we were sitting with his parents, so I wasn't by myself. Sean volunteered for one of the physical activities and again won another trophy. We've been on 2 cruises together before this one and have been trophy-less; this one we (by we, I mean Sean) have 3. Knowing that we still had packing to do, I was ready to head out after the first show since I still wanted to look at the shops. They seemed to have some good deals, but mainly I would be buying because it was a good deal, not because I thought anybody would want it. So after looking, we went to the room to pack. We keep our luggage with us instead of leaving it outside our room so we could get off the boat earlier. Otherwise our exit time would be 10:30 instead of 8:40 when we actually got to leave.

We woke up the next morning in time to see our first sunrise on the boat with lovely Tampa as a background. We then went and had our last breakfast on the boat. Sean was excited because they finally had his favorite type of hashbrowns. We then just had to wait around until they called our deck number to leave. My parents were just a couple doors down from us so we left with them. We quickly made it back into los Estados Unidos and then were on our way back to home and our puppy dog. I had checked my phone as soon as I had service in Tampa and saw that I had received a text picture from my classmate who was watching Coco. I couldn't open it, but she replied that Coco had thrown a rager on Wednesday night/Thursday morning. We just had to wait to see what that meant. It turns out Coco was none to pleased about being left from one Sunday to the next and showed her displeasure by chewing all 4 corners of the coffe table, chewing one corner of the entertainment center, chewing each arm rest on the couch and removing its stuffing and the ground finale, pulling our blue recliner into the center of the living room, ripping off the back of it, reclining the chair and then chewing the reclined portion, complete with stuffing removal. She also chewed a picture album that was on the coffee table, destroyed her bed and caused my classmate to pick up any possible items for chewing and place them in our hall bathroom. Nice, Coco, nice! Now when anyone asks me "what's the first thing you've sewn?" (since it's such a common question), I will be able to reply, "my living room couch." We weren't upset with her and you can't punish her when it happened days ago, but we at least know her destructive powers when she gets bored.

Anywho, the cruise was a great graduation and anniversary celebration. Now I just have to study for the next 6 weeks to pass my Board exam and my jurisprudence exam. Woot woot!